NDN Blog

The Saddam verdict shows how little we have to show for our time in Iraq

As I wrote yesterday, if this is cause for celebration in Washington then it shows how little we have to show for the lives lost, money spent, roads not taken and prestige squandered in Iraq these past four years.

There is a quiet desperation emanating from the White House these days.

Americans not cheering the economy

In one of its final desperate acts before the Tuesday elections, the White House is pointing to a slight improvement in some last minute economic news to argue that the economy is going well.  The problem with this argument is that most Americans don't believe it. 

In the latest CBS/New York Times poll, Bush's economic performance rating was 38% approve, 54% disapprove, down from 43/51 this time two years ago, when in theory the economy was not doing as well.  And in a Washington Post poll from last week fully 74% of Americans say their personal economic circumstances have either stayed the same or declined in recent years.  Pulling these two stands together this means even though we have been in a sustained economic recovery that has brought a strong stock market, record corporate profits, significant GDP and productivity growth somewhere between 3/5s and 3/4s of Americans do not believe the current economy is working for them. 

At NDN's Globalization Initiative, we've been writing a great deal about why most Americans feel the economy isn't working for them - simply put, it isn't.  The income for an average family in the Clinton era climbed by more than $7,000.  In the Bush era it has declined by over $1,000.   That's whats driving the poll numbers.  People feel like it was easier to get to ahead in the Clinton days, when Democrats were in charge.  And it was (for more on the performance of the Bush economy vs the Clinton economy visit here.)

Figuring out how to restore broad-based prosperity is one of the central governing challenges of our time, and one we've been working a great deal on in recent years.  While we should be pleased with today's numbers on income and unemployment, we also have to understand that there are many signs of economic danger ahead, and finding common ground between Bush's view of the world and the world the rest of us live on economic policy will be as tough as finding a working path forward on Iraq and foreign policy.  But that doesn't mean we all aren't going to try. 

While progressives may have found their voice on Iraq, we have not yet found our voice on the economy.  In poll after poll, voters have made it clear that they believe the economy is as central a concern as Iraq, and give the President similarly failing grades on the economy as they do on Iraq.   As vital as it will be for us to help steer a new and better course in Iraq next year, we will also have to be doing a great deal of work to find a new path on a whole basket of economic issues to clean up the mistakes and address the issues not addressed in the age of Bush. 

Conservatives, military in open rebellion over "stay the course"

We begin this final weekend with two new, remarkable stories that show what is at stake in Tuesday's elections.  A new Vanity Fair piece has two of the War's neocon architects opening up on Bush and the "failure" in Iraq; and on Monday, four leading military newspapers will publish a joint editorial calling for Rumsfeld to step down. 

Driving this unexpected criticism is the growing sense of how out of control and dangerous Iraq has become for our security interests.  As the now famous NIE from earlier this year reported Iraq is now fueling the spread of global jihadism, not containing it, meaning, to paraphrase Bush, our time in Iraq is making it more likely we will be fighting them here than over there. 

The "blowback" now inevitable from Iraq is why the historical analogy America needs to be focusing on is not Vietnam, but the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.  In that lost war the global Soviet brand was significantly damaged, a new generation of jihadists including Bin Laden where born, and the Soviet pull out left behind a nation that became the global breeding ground for jihadism which is still a virulent force in the world today. 

My own sense is that the charade of the Saddam verdict tomorrow will only help to reinforce what a farce our occupation of Iraq has become, and why so many seem in open rebellion against the majority party these days.  What is the positive spin from the Saddam verdict? That we got him again, and we were right to go into Iraq? We all know the guy was a bad guy, and essentially he had been tried and convicted in our minds along time ago.  But that is not the issue now, and trumpeting his demise again will only reinforce how little we have to show for the money, the lives, the time and prestige we've lost in our time in Iraq.

More evidence of the decline of live, broadcast TV

The Times has an important story today detailing the extraordinary impact DVRs are having on television:

..."Only 52.7 percent of DVR users who watched prime-time shows on CBS tuned in during the live broadcast in the last week of September. An additional 19.4 percent of viewers watched their recorded CBS shows later that day; about 8 percent one day later; 7 percent 2 days later; nearly 4.7 percent tuned in after 3 days; the rest watched even later.

Until yesterday Nielsen planned to release commercial ratings for DVR viewers based on three lengths of time: viewers who watched the original broadcast; viewers who watch either the original broadcast or who watch it later the same day; and those who watched it within a week.

TV networks would like all viewers who watch the program within one week to be counted, but ad agencies say many of their commercials are time-sensitive because they feature sales or events planned within a few days..."

The implications for all this for politics are very significant.  By 2008 DVR penetration in the US is expected to be a third of all television households, which may translate into as many as half of all voters.  We've already seen an extraordinary migration in recent years from broadcast to cable, as only about 45% of anyone watching TV at a given time today are watching the traditional over the air live broadcast television networks.  With this trend continuing, and DVR penetration at least doubling in the next 24 months, it is reasonable to assume that only a third of all TV viewers by 2008 will be watching live, over the air broadcast networks at any given time. 

The debate detailed in this story is whether the owners of television will allow Nielsen to track how people watch TV commercials.  The current system allows tracking of the watching of the show itself.  But with half of all consumers in this study watching a recorded version of the program, allowing of course for the skipping of the TV ads, it becomes essential to understand whether in the watching of these shows folks are watching ads any longer, and which ads they are watching. 

As Alan Wurtzel, chief of research at NBC says in the piece, “As the DVR penetration increases, the way people watch TV is simply going to change,”  

Those using only broadcast - which is still the pre-eminent way people in politics spend their money - will clearly be at a tremendous disadvantage.  As I wrote yesterday, it is clearly time for a big re-think of how we do media on the progressive side. 

I need your help today

As a friend of NDN, you know we only ask for money when we really need it. And today is one of those days. We need your help today both to end this political season strongly and to move immediately to build for the future and engage in what will be a critical period in our nation's history.  

Your support will help us expand our powerful, Spanish-language media campaigns – running since May – at this pivotal time.

But while the elections are drawing to a close, as an advocacy organization, our primary mission is to fight for our optimistic agenda, and that work will continue with new intensity on November 8th.

Your support today will ensure that NDN will have the resources to work closely with our allies on the Hill and across the nation to engage, advocate, and help shape the direction of the nation at this extraordinarily important time. Your support will allow us to:

  1. Make one final push with our multi-state, Spanish-language media campaigns, and develop additional modern strategies to successfully engage the fastest growing part of the American population, Hispanics.
  2. Fight for our communities shared values and core principles, best embodied by NDN's optimistic, innovative and effective agenda, A Commitment to Hope and Progress
  3. Develop and advocate for a new strategy to ensure broad-based prosperity in a changing global era, as well as bring our vital daily commentary on the affairs of the nation to more people through strategic investments in our marketing capacity.
  4. Work with our allies to deal with the challenges left unmet by conservative government, to enact Federal legislation to raise the minimum wage and create a sensible solution to the immigration challenge.
  5. Continue to imagine and invest in next generation progressive institutions, like the Democracy Alliance, Democracy Journal and Media Matters.
  6. Help progressives master the ever-changing and exciting new tools offered by advances in new media and technology, and work towards a new 21st century progressive majority coalition, though our widely-heralded market research and studies on the new demography of America.

I am proud of how far we’ve come and how much we have achieved. Now, we must work hard together to seize this historic opportunity to restore the promise of this great nation that we love. I hope you’ll join us in that work, today.

Wes Clarke's Vote Vets Ad

Very effective.

Two New Media Political Efforts to Check Out

In the final days of the campaign two new media efforts caught my eye...

Firstly, as much as viral video has been a part of various elections, I came across one implementation that would reward attention.

In the online video space in addition to YouTube and it's various clones, another there is a company called Brightcove...I've been a fan of their solution for a while now...it is a commercial platform for ad supported or subscription commercial net delivered video content. This allows small or large businesses to stream their content to users over the Internet, but it also gives buisnesses nearly complete control over the user interface, branding, unlike services such as YouTube.

The first political effort I've seen using Brightcove solution is Deval Patrick in the Massachusets Governor's race...Check out Deval Patrick TV to get a sense of what Brightcove enables, and what they did with it... Good stuff.

Secondly, in a season that saw the first nascent mobile efforts by folks like John Edwards, Arnold Schwarzenegger's, Rick Santorum, etc...I've come across the best integrated mobile call to action in a traditional campaign commercial that I've seen yet. It's from the Coalition for Progress...Here it is...

 

Vultures Gather

At the risk of a second consecutive post boosting British publications, who doesn't love the Economist's front covers?

 

Unpublished
n/a

The Financial Times

If a prize were given for the best political coverage of the American economy over the last 6 months, it would be won - hands down - by the Financial Times. They were the first to spot that wages and incomes would come to define the debate about why the growing economy isn't electorally popular. And despite a solid pro-business line (and readership), their DC writers have been exceedingly fair and balanced on the issues. Over the last two days they have had two exceptional, long interesting articles - the first yesterday explaning why the economy isn't winning the GOP any votes, the second today looking at the comensurate rise of economic populism (and anti-trade rhetoric) during the election. I'll quote from both of these later in the day when i can get the text; the FT doesn't give it away for free, sadly. They do, however, let you read their editorials. And this, from today's paper, is bang on the mark.

Republicans have presided over a period of exceptional economic growth. Yet this will not, apparently, win them next week's mid-term elections. This is only partly because of the chaos in Iraq and the scandals that beset them. It is also because middle-income American families have gained so little from the surging economy. The Republican response has been to ignore the problem. The Democrats have pandered to protectionism. Both reactions are -misguided.....

.....The forces behind this development include technology, the rise of winners-take-all markets, globalisation and also, perhaps, immigration. Together, these pressures have exacerbated inequality by increasing the rewards of skilled labour and, at the very top, of the most successful business-people, sports stars and entertainers. At the same time, they have undermined the position of lower-skilled workers...... The charge against the Republicans is that they have done nothing to stem the relative deterioration in middle incomes. True, wages may yet rise sharply later in the cycle. True, too, median real incomes have been adversely affected by the jump in the price of energy. But the impact of policy should not be ignored. In particular, Mr Bush's tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 predominantly benefited the rich......

.....The challenge for the Democrats is to find a credible political alternative. The right long-term strategy for them must be to embrace globalisation, while tackling its distributional impact. They should not shy away from higher taxes on the richest. But that is just a start. They should also suggest ways of using the proceeds to create opportunity for all.

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